Below you will find some bullet points which show that minors are less at risk and less likely to spread COVID-19 than other populations, that such vaccine mandates violate state and federal law as well as long-held norms in international public health consensus, and that denying religious exemptions for vaccines developed with aborted fetal tissue is not just wrong, but horrific, unethical, and possibly unconstitutional.

• According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association, approximately "1.6% of children with a known case of COVID-19 have been hospitalized and 0.01% have died."
• Of that 0.01% of children who have died with COVID, 75% of whom had some other underlying medical complexity.
• Children have milder symptoms compared to adults, and only account for 1.7% to 2% of diagnosed COVID-19 cases. 
• Vaccine mandates pose a threat to privacy rights, and other rights, of dependent children without providing appreciable benefit to their overall health.
• There is no fully FDA-approved vaccine being administered in the U.S., the current vaccine being administered is authorized under the temporary Emergency Use Authorization and is experimental. The FDA-approved "Comirnaty" is not available in the U.S.
• Emergency use products are specifically prohibited by federal law from being mandated according to 21 U.S.C. §360bbb-3 ("Authorization for medical products for use in emergencies... require... the option to accept or refuse administration of the product".
• The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) affirmed in August of 2020 that under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), experimental vaccines are not allowed to be mandatory.
• Decades-old universally accepted Codes of Medical Ethics, including the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki unequivocally prohibit any form of coercion whatsoever for individuals to participate in a medical experiment.
• It is neither feasible nor safe to mandate experimental vaccination among minors given the low risk of children in transmitting community spread of COVID-19.
• The medical evidence is clear and unambiguous that less than 1% of teachers and students have been infected in schools that have reopened.
• "Vaccine passports", "digital health IDs", and other such required documentation pose substantial risks to personal privacy and equal treatment before the law for all citizens of the United States
• K-12 vaccinations cannot be required without certain clear and consistent exemptions applied, among them medical and conscience clauses, or risk forfeiting a district's or school board's authority to authorize such a mandate, not can a vaccine mandate for these populations be a factor in federal and state school-aid funding.
• Recently it has come to light that major pharmaceutical companies responsible for the creation of COVID-19 vaccines used research connected to aborted fetal tissue in the creation of their vaccines. This constitutes a grave violation of the sanctity of life, and the effort to obfuscate and cover up this information crosses clear medical and ethical boundaries.

Further, the state of Virginia has enshrined in law in § 1-240.1: Rights of parents that "A parent has the fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent's child." This addition to state law was made in 2013 following the opinion of the Supreme Court of Virginia in L.F. v. Breit, which held that "The relationship between a parent and a child is a constitutionally protected liberty interest under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000); Wyatt v. McDermott, 283 Va. 685, 692, 725 S.E.2d 555, 558 (2012) (“We recognize the essential value of protecting a parent's right to form a relationship with his or her child.”); Copeland, 282 Va. at 198, 715 S.E.2d at 19. Indeed, the Supreme Court of the United States has characterized a parent's right to raise his or her child as “perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 65. Any statute that seeks to interfere with a parent's fundamental rights survives constitutional scrutiny only if it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. McCabe v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 558, 563, 650 S.E.2d 508, 510 (2007); see also Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721 (1997)." 

What's concerning to me is that this is even a discussion. Why would anyone think they have the right to mandate experimental vaccines for children is beyond me. More people have lost their lives from COVID in the last nine months of the current administration that in the final year of the previous administration and the majority of the vaccination campaign was conducted this year alone.

COVID "breakthrough" cases are common in high-vaccine areas of the country, such as Vermont (~80% fully vaccinated), and even internationally in Israel (~80% fully vaccinated). These vaccines, at best, provide limited immunity for a handful of months for those who are truly vulnerable: a group of people that is most assuredly NOT made up of minors.

The rush to vaccinate, despite almost no clear information about the long-term effects of the vaccine, and the existence of therapeutics is troubling. These vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission, so they encourage the COVID-19 virus to mutate into new and potentially more lethal or infectious variants.

Big pharmaceutical companies have generated windfall profits, while American workers are being coerced to choose between taking an experimental vaccine with no long-term studies available and unprecedented numbers of reported injuries and deaths from the vaccine. 

We, as a state, and as a nation, need to take a step back and stop pushing these vaccines and terminating healthcare professionals (who for a year had no vaccine but were held up as heroes for treating patients with COVID, but are now pariahs for refusing an experimental vaccine). This has become politicized, unfortunately. Pushing this on children will only exacerbate the already damaged relationship the state currently has with parents. Something that could be avoided if the state showed a greater interest in the democratic form of government which it was originally constituted, to represent the people, not rule from top-down dictates.

It's time to start seeing those you disagree with as humans with agency and free will, and to remember you serve them--not Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson. We do not want vaccine mandates for ourselves, or our children. Take a chill pill.